


Greatest Comforts

by Euhines



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gencio Week, Healthy Relationships, I Love My Green Sons, M/M, Mutual Pining, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8487160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euhines/pseuds/Euhines
Summary: Moments of happiness are few and far between; it is best to lose ourselves in them and pretend we never knew sadness.





	1. first meeting

As the sun rises in the east, Genji catches a glimpse of shimmering green on gray pavement and wonders if he’s dreaming. He stands on the rooftop of a bar on Saturday morning, and it’s a moment where Gibraltar runs on turned off street lamps, fading drunken howls, and the occasional punch of laughter as celebrating college students make their way home. All of it seems like an obtrusive kind of peace he once knew so much about. He looks to the right and catches another glimpse of green. Curiosity eats at his artificial bones and pushes him forward to land on the next rooftop over. Genji’s soft footsteps are accompanied by the sound of skates against asphalt, but no matter where he looks he cannot find the source, as if he’s caught perpetually chasing some melody that is always a beat faster.

The one-sided chase ultimately stops near the Rock of Gibraltar, where houses and coffee shops form shadows only seen during a midsummer’s dawn. The sidewalks and roads are empty in this part of town, heads still pressed to their pillows and young children only slowly starting to open their eyes as the sun grows farther from the horizon. Genji drops to the street below with slight breath and watches from around the corner as a man far smaller than him excitedly waits outside of a small bakery before a woman greets him with a bag smelling of pastries and eventual toothaches. The stranger thanks her with the enthusiasm only found at three in the afternoon, and Genji finds himself wanting nothing more than for the man to turn around. Yet Genji stays put as the man skates away, humming a tune that fades into light and dust and it somehow finds its way into Genji’s head. As Genji sees him disappear, he hears his fingers tapping on the brick wall of the home he hides behind and promptly drops his hand to his side. He stares up at the Watchpoint once before turning away and climbing back onto the rooftops where he can fly freely.

He travels to King’s Row with heavy shoulders and streaks of green outlining the veins and arteries of his heart. Not even Zenyatta is a source of comfort as they stand side by side, lost in a sea of mourning faces and candlelight. When Genji hears the hum at the back of his mind it almost looks like the portrait of Mondatta is staring right back at him. The hope that lingers in the air is what pieces Zenyatta together and allows him to look forward. Genji is unsure why he himself is on the verge of shattering.

Nostalgia and longing are a poor man’s glue.

The green so much like his own is seen a week later the day Genji returns to Gibraltar, and much to his surprise it turns yellow midway, like sunflowers growing out of the grass. Genji had been on edge the days prior, unable to properly rest as he continued to think about the Recall notification that still remained unanswered within his communication link. Zenyatta waits patiently in Nepal for Genji’s decision; a simple _yes_ or _no_ being the reason he buys a ticket for the next plane to Spain. A pair of dark, kind eyes make their way to his line of sight, and everything comes apart not with a ragged cry but with a gasp for air: softly, steadily, silently. The breathless _hello_ is not from Genji, it’s from the lungs of the man in front of him who has somehow put Genji teetering on the edge of existence. Love at first sight is an unnecessary exaggeration, but a force beyond Genji’s comprehension twitches his fingers and wants him to glide them across the stranger’s face as if all the answers he searches for are there.

“I’m Lúcio.” He smiles and stretches out his hand for Genji to shake. And when he speaks, everything settles down back to a soft lull that manages to overcome every engine, every chirp, every doorbell. To not feel comfortable within his presence is unheard of. There is a hint of worry in Lúcio’s posture, sweat gathering at the back of his neck where the sun touches, and interest swirling within his irises. Genji soaks up each detail one millimeter at a time, glad that a visor is all that separates them. There’s something new, certainly, about him, but the familiarity is a flame he can’t rekindle from his memories, fading away once a soft breeze caresses it. Perhaps they’ve met before, in another life, in another time.

It’s almost feels a little too natural to respond to Lúcio’s smile with a _nice to meet you, I’m Genji_ and somehow the syllables are perfect on his tongue as if they are the movements of a symphony all falling into place. Meant to be. Genji barely registers that Lúcio continues to speak as their hands shake, mentioning that he’s seen him on Winston’s monitor along with the other Overwatch members that haven’t responded to the recall. Genji’s jaw drops as soon as his hand does, and he openly stares at Lucio, completely speechless. For Winston to openly recruit new members is practically a death sentence by the United Nations, and he wonders if Lúcio knows exactly what he’s gotten himself into. Yet something tells him that this is not the first time Lúcio has looked death in the eye and managed to make a friend.

Before Genji can even get a word in, he’s following Lúcio to the Watchpoint in the distance, taking in every word Lucio says as if it is sacred. A quick, mental note is made to give Zenyatta a call. However, Genji is still unsure whether he should rejoin Overwatch, but every footstep feels a little closer to home, the beats of his pulse sinking into the pavement to curve around the light that trails behind Lúcio.


	2. family

For Genji, family is synonymous with tragedy, pieced into three different parts: before he dies, when he dies, and when he’s no longer dead. The reality over his own brother raising a sword towards his heart is as cruel and relentless as the downpour of dreary summer rain. Faceless apparitions gather around him like mourners at a funeral, and yet from the way they point, they were the ones to put him an early grave in the first place. His life had become a monochromatic gray, devoid of the yellow of his mother’s hairpin, the blue of Hanzo’s abandoned sketchbook, and the certain shade of purple that was his father’s favorite pen. Black, white, and gray filled the roots of his family tree, but perhaps there was never any color there to begin with. An empire built on blood and lies. A heavy weight on his shoulders that came with being his father’s son.

For Lúcio, family is strength, an anchor. Two mothers who support him through thick and thin, drying his tears when need be, and showing him not to be deterred even if life was not always on his side. His sisters light every corner of his heart, allowing a warmth that even the hot summers of Rio can not achieve, leaving him in a state of comfort and care. He’d put his life on the line for them, no regrets, no hesitation. The spectrum of the rainbow paints the moments of his journey with his pride as the paintbrush, each stroke coming from the ends of his words whenever he makes a speech during protests or pumps up the crowd at a concert. Yet the splotches of gray poison his canvas when he realizes that he is no longer safe in Brazil, or any part of the world really. His activism comes with a price, and there is a chance he may never see his mothers and sisters again for a long time if he continues to pull through with the world tour to spread the awareness on Vishkar’s doings.

Somewhere in the middle, while the newly reformed Overwatch can barely stand upon two shaking legs, Lúcio and Geni make a family of their own. It’s small, with cracks around the edges, but it works. Lúcio takes one look at Genji and decides that perhaps black, white, and gray aren’t always that bad, using it to paint the clouds that bring summer rain on the days they can sit in and watch movies. Or the shadows that form from the tip of their toes as they walk on the beach in front of the sunset. Watchpoint: Gibraltar is both everything, and nothing, like being in Japan or Brazil. But being anywhere, with Genji, is like being home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry for this late update but my life is awful rn


	3. music

Melodies frost delicate and translucent over a suffocating atmosphere, blanketing bruised skin and past mistakes. The steady tap of Lúcio’s fingers against Genji’s arm is comforting, evidence to their current reality: they’re still together, the two of them, and they’re making it through one more day even when each feels like the last. The blood that pooled in Lúcio’s mouth no longer leaks from the corner of his lips, and Genji watches in fascination as the injuries on his face slowly disappear. The yellow light that pours out of Lúcio is accompanied by a beat of a song that settles into Genji’s heart as if that is the sole purpose of its existence. It traces all of the lines and angles and pasts and futures in what is left of his human skin, and Genji thinks that something quite like this—this feeling, this _ability—_ can only belong to Lúcio.

A smile lights up Lúcio’s entire face, small and somehow ear to ear, no teeth but brighter than the moon and all of the stars, as Lúcio says, “we’ll get through this.” And Genji becomes increasingly aware that a fire had broken out off to the side, and faceless Talon agents litter the dust filled floor of the warehouse. Somewhere from afar McCree is watching his smoke twirl through his chapped lips from his battered lungs while Tracer sits by his feet with a somber expression. The entire room empties in the flash of a second until all that is left is Genji and Lúcio. Genji takes this moment to gather Lúcio in his arms, music and warmth dissolving in his veins. Yet at the basis of it all is pain. It’s the sort that rips through his artificial flesh, the kind of pain that slices every nerve and hurts, really, really hurts. The possibility that this music will disappear if Lúcio ever passes on, leaving Genji and the rest of the world inwardly screaming in agony. Lúcio becoming nothing but a memory is frightening.

But for now Lúcio’s melody travels through Genji’s body, gliding into corners and curves he thought nonexistent. Lúcio’s fingers continue to tap at Genji’s arm, and the sound of a piano erupts from nowhere, glittering loud and clear from where human meets metal. It all comes together, falls into place, everything sinks in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh im really behind jshfkjsdsf

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for how short these are sob


End file.
